One of India’s most experienced statesmen, Mr. Arjun Singh is now in his second term as India’s minister for Human Resource Development, a key portfolio that encompasses Education. He will be speaking about how India developed its unique advantage in tertiary education, including the world-famous IITs and IIMs, which lead a vast range of educational institutions that produce more graduates (especially in science and technology) than any other nation on earth.

Mr. Arjun Singh was twice elected chief minister of Madhya Pradesh (then India’s largest state by area) in the 1980s, and served as Governor of Punjab at the height of the separatist insurgency; during this time, he was instrumental in negotiating the “Rajiv-Longowal pact” that was a precursor to the eventual end of the separatist movement. As union communications minister in the late-1980s, he began the early reforms that transformed India’s telecommunications landscape. Mr. Singh was vice president of the Congress party, India’s oldest and largest political party, in the 1980s and its Working President in the mid-1990s.

The heads of India’s central board of secondary education (CBSE) and Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) will also be on hand to take questions after Minister Singh’s speech.